Prospective OAT Student
 

Hi i'm in the potentially fortunate position of having parents willing to support me through OAT - albeit securing the loan on their property - and would like to hear from students/pilots that have been through the whole integrated APPFO system.

I have already visited the campus and have a seminar booked for the 16th of august, I have also recently passed my class 1 medical.

My primary concerns at the moment are the rising oil prices and the consequences it may have to the industry as well as the 'credit crunch', borrowing extorionate amounts of money at a time of economical unstability is logically not a wise decision.

I'm by no means spoilt or sheltered - far from it - and have lived a rather disadvantaged life thus far. I see this as an opportunity to follow my dream, but fantasy aside I still remain conciously open to furthering my education through university.

Constructive criticism is much appreciated,

WQ.

WQ-ingo,

No nasty comments, good luck.

Have you looked at CTC? I am told their product is rather good.

Also what ever the price of the course is, have £10-15K back up for extra's, Twins cost a mint to hire per hour. Consider the cost of a type rating, a lot ox ex-oxford end up going to Ryanair, 20 odd grand for a type rating.

I went modular, self sponsored (boo hiss) and now drive a 737 new one (but not ryanair), paid similar money in total to the basic price of the Oxford intergrated course.
But as you will not listen to anyone who suggests otherwise, i have seen it many times, best of luck and work hard, hope to hear you in the sky.
FC

Many thanks for the response, I am completely open to ideas i just see OAT as a realistic option due to their funding scheme. However i am concerned with the prospect of having to fund a type rating? Does anybody know the structure behind the loan repayment period?

Why pay all that money to go to oxford?

most of there people end up at ryanair, where you end up paying 20,000 + for a TR. THINK ABOUT THAT 20 THOUSAND POUNDS to work for some one! The rest of there guys end up at flybe, who take on just as many people who have been through a modular training route.

Try CTC, much better school. If you dont get in there, why not just do the mod route, ok - you may have to walk into a bank a sort out the money yourself, big deal!!!

I'm not sure on the specifics but I've heard £1000/month for the loan quoted on here a few times.

adverse_bump does have a very good point. If you are going to end up in FR - why not just go modular and go on their SSTR course - at a cost less than the basic OAT course price (remember you need to pay for the SSTR on top).

Similarly with flyBe. Statistically, you have a good chance of ending up with FR or BE (and not BA - like a lot of people who are off to OAA seem to think!).

Even better - go modular, and try flyBE - if you don't get it, then go for the SSTR with FR.

Whatever you do, please take out some good income protection insurance - if it does all go ti*s up - your family home is gone!

I decided OAA as their package suits an individual such as myself and they offer an opportunity to loan the costs as i couldn't afford it otherwise. Yes modular may be cheaper but i have no way to pay for it and the professional studies loans are no longer an option.

Go and sit down at the bank and talk to some1 in the know. you'll be surprised what is available! especially with as house a security!

If you are planning to take out a loan secured against your parents house, would it not be cheaper for them to increase there mortgage to cover the antisapated cost.
I am probably being to simplistic, but I would expect the cost of an increase in the first mortgage to be cheaper than a second charge mortgage.

This would then give you much more choice on selecting your Flight Training provider.

I have no reason to critise OAA. (they are probably very good), But it seems a bit unfortunate to have to select a FTO on the basis of funding.

As an aside; I thought Cabair, FTE and CTC all did a broadly similar funding package

Fran :)

Ok, why don't you go and work for your money instead?

Many people are funding their training by working as cab drivers, flipping hamburgers or as hitman.

Advantages:
-Lower cost of training, over 50% less than integrated
-Personal flexibility
-You get to choose the schools you think meet your needs the best
-You can switch schools whenever you feel you're not happy
-If you can't find a job immediately you can keep your hamburger job and will not have problems keeping current
-No debts at graduation
-No debts=less stress in finding your first airline job
-Life experience from your hamburger job
-Higher motivation and personal satisfaction at graduation
-Appreciation from recruiters
-If needed, you can more easily buy yourself a type-rating, without stacking debt over debt.
-Better appreciation of your job when starting on the right seat: you don't have debts to pay-off, so you will feel more comfortable with the lower starting salary (on average 1.4K£).

Disadvantages:
-none

If you really want to do it, you can make it debtfree.
I've seen countless people do it and I've done it myself.

Good luck :ok:

I start making repayments in August on my £50K loan that I took out with HSBC in order to fund training at Oxford.

I did the integrated course and got a job flying the Q400 for the airline mentioned above.

The loan repayment is £600 a month for the next 11 years.

Doesn't bear thinking about. Although it could have been a heck of a lot more had I gone to Ryanair and paid for my TR.

Hope that helps.

Nat West are offering Unsecured laons up to £40,000 for Waypoint and or a type rating. You cannot just walk into a branch, however. a number of students at oxford now have these.

Hello, I've just completed OAA several weeks ago. The situation at the minute isn't wonderful, but about 5 of my classmates are starting their training with BA this week, and possibly more to follow. On my BA assessment day it was about 85% Oxford, a couple Cabair and FTE. I guess you could say you pay the premium for Oxford's career prospects which was my main reason for selecting them.
You'll hear all sorts of bashing of various school's on here, but all I suggest is that you check it out for yourself - talk to real and past students from the various organisations, don't just believe all the marketing department stuff. The fact that quite alot of us are going to end up in Ryanair, some may say, makes Oxford and Integrated training a bit of an unnessacary expense, but who knows where the industry will be in 12/18 months from now! Any questions, feel free to ask.

HSBC does a nearly identical loan for both OAA and Cabair. BBVA does one for FTE. HSBC offer an unsecured loan for CTC and apparently, Natwest do an unsecured loan for OAA Modular. You have choice, even if the one you make is still OAA.

Thanks for the financial info i'll go do my research...

In the mean time how much of an influence is a good education when it comes to airline recruitment? I have only a physics A-level grade A for various reasons and i'm slightly worried this will hinder my prospects of graduate employment? Any thoughts?

WQ.

Have you thought about going to a flight school that offers modular training like Bristol or Stapleford. This means you can do your training in parts but treat it like a intergrated route by not leaving as much gap between each part?

With this you can get your PPL+Night rating with the ATPL exams/Hours building and then looking at the current market?

Ric
P.S. Good luck for the future though; As for me I have to go through to university and then fund my training the modular route.:rolleyes:

So say i'm off to OAA in jan, how much realistically am i looking to fork out to cover extra expenses? I wont be staying in halls, rather a flat that my parents have there, (So not rent) i don't have a car so i'll cycle and when it comes to food i can really budget (£15 wk can do me - rice in a tuppaware box!) What do you think?

WQ.

The usual extra costs are skills test exam fees, license issue fees, aircraft hire for the skills tests, any retakes you need and extra hours you need to meet the required standard. I don't know whether OAA includes all of these, but combined, they can add up to close to £4000 or more, all in. Do they include the accommodation in Goodyear too?

a grand a month keeps me in a rented house paying about 320 quid a month, food, car and socialising once a week or so. accom over in gyr is included.

A grand a month is abit excessive do you not think? i could live on about £250 month - to be fair i dont have to pay rent though.

Well having tried it for over a year at OAT, no it isn't excessive! However it isn't the tightest budget you can imagine - rent and food bills (80 quid a month) come to 400, my life insurance, loss of licence insurance, and mobile bill cost me another 100 quid a month, leaving me 500 a month. Car (petrol) costs me say 80 quid a month, 400 quid a month, 60 quid off the credit card a month (trying to pay the bugger off!) then around 75 quid a week to use for my own use...and having been a student for 5 years now, that allows me to live more like a grown up and gives me chance to go out for some light socialising and do the things that you can't afford to do when you're on a shoestring...and most of the guys I know here don't want to have to live on a shoestring because it's a bloody hard slog!

Having said that, if you can live off 250 quid a month, good luck to you...but it won't be easy and you won't have any margin for relaxing which as anyone who has done this will tell you is heartbreaking when your mates are out 'socialising' on friday after being in groundschool all week, or when they go for a trip somewhere and you have to decline...